Allegiances
by indiejane
Summary: Sequel to "Hidden." Two years later. The girl Tig despises is returning from prison; Clay's days as President are numbered; will loyalty prove to be a virtue or a liability? Like its prequel, explores some dark places. Tig/OC, Happy/OC
1. Chapter 1

_**This story begins almost exactly two years after the end of "Hidden."**_

_**Some important things to note: The story's going to be another collaboration with Anfield, and will run concurrently with hers, much like "Hidden" and "The End of the Beginning" did. Since it's two years later, officially the story is AU, and went off-canon after the end of season one. What this means is that the events of season two (Abel's kidnapping, Half-Sack's death) never happened, while other things did, which will be revealed as time goes on. For now, I'll say that Half-Sack is still alive and has been patched in, and Clay is hanging on and still President... for now.**_

_**There's a possibility we may fill in the intervening time with some one-shots, so if there's anything you missed or wanted to know, put it in the feedback (yummy, delicious feedback) and I'll try to clear up as much as I can.**_

Chapter One

Gemma picked her way around the discarded bottles, ashtrays, condom wrappers, clothing and general filth that littered Tig's dorm room. Much as she felt free to come and go as she pleased throughout this place, she'd never been in here before. Given the passed-out scene in front of her in his bed, she'd have been a lot happier not to have been in here now.

She folded her arms, standing as far away from the bed as she could comfortably get and still be sure of his hearing her, and shook her head slightly in disapproval. "Tig."

He didn't move, and neither did the redhead with the chain around her neck who was lying half underneath him. Gemma debated going back into the kitchen for a pitcher of ice water. Instead, she reached out a freshly-manicured hand, leaned over, and prodded Tig's shoulder. "Tigger. Wake the fuck up."

Nothing.

Given the way he'd been about all this when she tried to bring it up before, she had a suspicion he could feign unconsciousness until the coroner came. All told, the girl would probably be a better bet. Gemma leaned forward and followed the trail of the chain Tig had looped around her neck, realizing she'd better wake the girl up slowly—its other end was secured to the leg of the bed in such a way that if she tried to raise her head off the mattress, it would start to tighten around her neck. In spite of herself, Gemma could visualize exactly how it would work, Tig behind her with the girl on her knees, hips raised high for him but head down. _God, I'd give anything not to be in here right now, _she thought. _And now I'm trying to figure out how to get this sweetbutt up and out without strangling her to death. _Her expression, when she looked at Tig, generally contained both affection and exasperation, but lately the latter had been winning out over the former.

Gemma took a closer look at the girl, running through the tremendous memory banks of her mental names-and-faces file. Luckily, there hadn't been too many redheads around lately. This was too young to be Sarah. What-the-hell-was-her-name-Lily-or-Lucy had bright cherry-red Manic Panic hair, and this girl was natural. Covered in freckles, too. _Shit, _she realized. _That's the one Sack's been hittin'. Guy can't seem to catch a break. _She remembered Tig's unbelievable combativeness the night before—he'd been in everyone's face, knocking back shots and looking for trouble. This Ashley—no, that wasn't it—well, this girl, had obviously fulfilled the purpose of both getting him off, and pissing someone off. What the hell was her—_That's right, _she thought, _Audrey. _Damn it all to hell, she actually liked this girl.

Gemma stomped off, returning in a few minutes with a set of bolt cutters. She got down on one knee next to the bed. "Audrey, hon," she said in her regular tone, "you're not gonna want to move for a minute here."

The chain separated with an audible _-chunk- _as the redhead opened her eyes, looking confused. "Gemm—oh, _shit. _Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit." The girl looked behind her, and seemed to be trying to squirm out from underneath Tig's arm and leg that had been thrown across her. Still "asleep," he rolled over onto his back, pulling the sheet entirely off of her. Audrey now looked both thrilled to be released and horrified at being in this position in front of Gemma, who took some pity on her and handed the girl a blanket that had fallen to the floor. As Audrey sat up and wrapped it around herself, Gemma could see that the girl was trying to put together the events of the night before and figure out how the hell she'd ended up here. It was a look Gemma recognized, but it pissed her off nonetheless, not at the girl, but at Tig. _Enough women fallin' all over him all the time, _she thought, _and still he had to go for __this one, who was probably minding her own business until he ran off Sack and started getting her drunk. _

"Tig, wake the fuck up," she snarled. There was absolutely no way he'd slept through all of that, and this performance was getting tired. She wasn't _actually_ his mother, and she didn't feel much like being ignored, that morning in particular. "I'm serious."

He didn't move. That did it.

Before the girl Audrey's horrified eyes, Gemma snatched the Glock up from the nightstand table and clicked the safety off, pointing the gun straight at Tig. It wasn't a sound his conditioned reflexes could ignore, and his eyes snapped open and he quickly pulled himself half-up onto one elbow. "Hey honey," he said in a perfectly friendly tone to Audrey, then turned his eyes on Gemma. "What the fuck, Gem?"

Gemma kept the gun on him, an irritated smile twisting her lip. "Time to get up, Tigger." She turned and spoke to the girl. "You want to pull yourself together, grab some coffee, take a shower, feel free. Sack's out on a job. You want to come back here, you talk to _me_ about it first, OK?"

Audrey nodded, pulling the blanket a little more closely around herself.

Gemma smiled. "All right then, Audrey, I think you should go now. Tig's got a big day."

Tig's eyes went completely blank, and despite herself, Gemma felt a chill. Too bad—she was going to do the right thing here, whether he wanted to give her his Killer Face or not. She lowered the gun and looked at Audrey. "His wife," she explained, "is gettin' out of prison."

**-0-**

He was doing his best to ignore everyone, but they were making it hard. He'd showered and dressed slowly, hoping they'd have gotten sick of waiting for him, but by the time he came out into the clubhouse, almost everyone was there. Clay was leaning on the bar, with Gemma refilling a glass for him, while Bobby was pulling some crumb-cake that didn't look half-bad out of a bakery bag. The others were sitting around on the couches trying to act like they just happened to be there, Juice acting like he'd just come by to see what might be on TV. Jax and V were next to each other, her denim-clad leg draped over one of his and his hand possessively around her waist. Tig snorted—looked like those two were on again.

Clay held up a set of keys. "Don't know that she'll have much with her," he said, "but I figured you might want to take a car when you go to pick up Aisha." He set the keys down in front of Tig. "You're runnin' a bit late," he said with a warning tone in his voice.

Tig sloshed some vodka into his orange juice glass. Clay was going to make this difficult? Fuck it. _I'm done being diplomatic, _he thought, knowing that "diplomatic" hardly described his reaction to anything Aisha-related over the past couple of years. "The fuck I'm going to pick up that gash," he said slowly and deliberately, then drained his glass and poured another, this time without the orange juice.

To be honest, he wasn't entirely sure why Clay had taken it upon himself to take this much proprietary interest in the fucking situation. There had been a minor shit-storm when Stahl had dropped the bomb that he was married, but Clay had cut it short by telling everyone to shut the fuck up about it, they'd had to keep Aisha from testifying and it had only made sense for Tig to do what he had. Tig's momentary sense of relief had evaporated, though, when Clay had added, in the tone of a pronouncement, "so that girl's Sam Crow family now. She's in there doing time for him, and when she gets out, we're gonna be there for her."

And now, Clay's version of being "there for her" seemed to mean acting like Tig was supposed to have something to do with her return, not to mention having the new prospect clear out a room for her in the clubhouse and Gemma acting like it was her fucking daughter getting out today. Were they just trying to break his balls?

"Call Hap and have _him _do it," he said with a sneer.

"Can you _not_ start that shit again?" V snapped impatiently. "It got boring a while ago." In two years, Tig reflected, Jax had still not been able to do anything about V's fucking mouth.

Clay rolled his eyes. "Hap's in Tacoma," he said. "Precisely so you can't pull this sick handing-her-over bullshit you've convinced yourself of. It's on _you."_

Tig narrowed his eyes and smiled a little. "I ain't picking her up," he said softly.

Gemma threw her hands up. "Fine," she said. "_I'll _pick her up."

"You stay out of this," Clay said fiercely to her. "I've told you. I don't want you getting in the middle of what's between_ them_."

Tig slammed down his glass. "Nothing _between_ me and that little bitch to get in the _middle_ of." With a sense of satisfaction, he turned his back on their expectant faces and walked out.

Everyone was silent for a moment. Gemma looked at Clay. "I did tell her someone would be coming for her," she said almost apologetically.

Bobby clapped a hand down on Juice's shoulder. "_We'll_ get her," he said. Bobby wasn't taking sides, but he remembered the party they'd had for him the last time he got out, the cheers and congratulations and the sense that he was back _home_. She wouldn't be getting any of that, and Christ knows what Tig was planning to pull on her when she got back to the clubhouse, but he could make damn sure she wasn't standing at some bus depot by herself. He snatched up the keys Clay had set on the bar, and Juice followed him outside.

**-0-**

Juice's first thought was that Aisha looked exactly the same, and then that she looked completely different. The reality, of course, lay somewhere in the middle. She was two years older, but at her age, the two years had just shaved off a bit of the disconcerting childish look she'd had, and made her that much more attractive. He hair had gotten longer, he could see immediately, and she wore it down, the dark curls reaching almost to her waist. They were late picking her up—Tig's antics had delayed them and then traffic had been all bitched up—but she didn't seen edgy at all as they drove up. She sat calmly on a bench, leaning back, her head tilted back and her arms resting along the back of the bench. It was a surprisingly un-girlish posture, without a trace of nervousness. In fact, it kind of made Juice think of V.

There'd been some talk of all of them visiting her. It even seemed like it was probably the right thing to do—go down in a group, make a show, let her know the charter appreciated what she'd done. Surprisingly, it had been Gemma who had vetoed the plan, even though Gemma had probably spent the most time of any of them checking on Aisha and making sure she had everything she needed, apparently having gotten over how much the girl had worked her nerves when she'd actually been around. Gemma had been completely against any idea of them all going down there, sticking to her guns even against Clay and Jax combined, who'd both seen it as some sort of point of MC honor. Gemma's position hadn't made any sense to Juice either, until Gemma finally broke down and explained when Jax had exploded and asked her if she was just trying not to piss off Tig. "This isn't about _him," _she'd said in a disgusted tone. "This is about, how's _she_ gonna feel, you all walk into that visiting room, and his is the only cut she doesn't see?"

Everyone had been silent then, and the idea had gotten dropped. Juice knew Gemma had gone to see her a couple of times, V too. Surprisingly, Clay had made the trip at least once. But the rest of them had just let it be, so this was his first time seeing her since Happy had pulled her out of the clubhouse a minute after Tig hit the floor unconscious. He found himself wondering if he'd seem as different to her as she did to him, then figured that she probably didn't even remember him all that well. They hadn't exactly spent a lot of time together, and in the brief time she was at the clubhouse, she hadn't had eyes for anyone but Tig.

He was reflecting that she looked pretty cool, all things considered, and then they pulled up alongside her, and whatever carefully-cultivated facade of unconcern she was trying to sell crumbled as her her eyes flashed from the two of them to the empty backseat. When Juice jumped out and held the door open for her, he got a look at her face and wished he hadn't.

"Shotgun?" he asked.

She pulled herself together and smiled. "Sure," she said, and he remembered how soft her voice was and how she always sounded like she was about seven years old.

Driving back, she kept the window open and didn't talk much at first. Finally, she lit a cigarette, tilted her head back, took a long, slow drag and smiled over at them. "Nice of you guys to come," she said.

Bobby shrugged. "We were fightin' over who was gonna get to do it," he said, grinning at her. "I called it 'cause I wanted to see how you were gettin' on." He looked her over as best he could while driving. "You're pretty put together for someone just gettin' out," he said appreciatively.

Aisha giggled a bit. "Gemma. Seriously. Cam down here a week ago with clothes, said I couldn't come out looking like shit." She rolled her eyes a bit. "'Course, the only problem with that, is now I'm in the sort of thing _Gemma _would be wearing if she were me."

That explained it, Juice thought. He'd seemed to remember that back at the clubhouse she'd either worn these little hippie-girl dresses, or jeans and some shirt of Tig's. Now, she was in a pair of pale blue jeans that looked painted on and a sleeveless, clinging white shirt whose neckline draped dangerously low. High-heeled boots and a tight leather jacket, both in shiny dark-brown leather, completed her look. It was pure Gemma, and it was contributing as much as anything to the sense that this wasn't a little girl sitting here anymore.

Aisha took another long drag of her cigarette. Come to think of it, Juice didn't remember her smoking, either. "Gemma or not," he said, "I'd send any girl I was hittin' to Valley for a couple of years if I thought she'd come back looking as good as you do." It wasn't the sort of remark he'd have made to her... hell, to _any_ girl... as recently as a year ago, but things had changed.

Aisha looked startled, and then Bobby have him a warning look and cleared his throat. "Guess you know Clay wants you staying with us," he said.

She nodded. "It's really nice of him. I don't really have any plans right now. I need to to see what..." her voice trailed off, and she looked out the window.

_What Tig wants her to do_, Juice completed the thought in his mind. He leaned forward. "We should probably let you know something-" he said. Bobby gave him another warning look, but he didn't really care—he didn't want Aisha walking in there blind. "Tig, he didn't take it too well when he found out what happened."

She nodded, her face unreadable.

He tried again. "I mean... he's pretty mad at you."

She nodded again. "I know. Hap warned me, last time he was down."

Bobby made a sound through his teeth. "He come down often?"

She shrugged. "Kinda, yeah. I mean... I'd guess probably when he's on the road anyway, you know?"

"Sure," Bobby said. "But that might be somethin' you don't want to mention, if you know what I mean."

She was jolted out of her trance, and turned around to Bobby with an incredulous look. "Oh, you have got to be _fucking kidding me_," she said. "Still?"

Bobby nodded. "Afraid so."

"If anything, he's worse about it," Juice said. "Guess it just got stuck in his head and he hasn't been able to move past it."

She closed her eyes. "Shit," she said. "Yeah, Hap didn't tell me that part. Hap's not _there_, is he? There's not going to be some..." she shuddered, seeming unable to even come up with a noun for what she might be asking about.

"Relax, he's in Tacoma," Bobby said. "Seemed like it might be a good idea for you and Tig to have a chance to deal with each other one on one for a while. Things have been quiet lately."

They wouldn't be for long, Juice thought. Aisha might have come out of prison entirely willing to let Tig dictate the rest of her life—hell, Juice still had trouble wrapping his head around the idea that she was _married_ to the man—but he knew that Tig was going to be venting some serious hate, and Aisha seemed different enough from the pliant little girl of a couple of years ago that it might not go just like Tig was thinking. It might not, he reflected, be something he wanted to be around for.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Don't expect too many more updates like this-I can't keep up this pace, but I started working out the sequel before "Hidden" was done. I'm going to put this out there and ask what you guys think-although I was worried Tig's behavior in this chapter might seem unrealistic, somehow I just really didn't see it happening any other way. And it doesn't bode particularly well for the future, either._**

**_Sexiness AND plot. All wrapped up in one chapter._**

Chapter Two

Sons were pretty used to what people coming out of prison acted like, and Bobby and Juice weren't surprised when Aisha leaned her head back and closed her eyes, giving off a signal that she didn't want to talk anymore. Not only was she adjusting to freedom, Juice figured, but she was a quiet person to begin with, and she had her meeting with Tig to worry about. Although she looked like she was sleeping for the rest of the ride, neither he nor Bobby really bought the act.

_"Don't talk, don't argue, don't ask me any more fucking questions, and if I see you cry I swear to fucking God I'll leave you to bleed out from a gut shot with your mouth taped shut in a supply closet. Are we clear? I want you to know that I'm only doing what I have to do here. It's not you, and it's not me, it just the way circumstances turned out. It's not the way I would have wanted things."_

Was it the way _she_ would have wanted things? She turned the question over in her mind, and then realized it wasn't one she could answer. When it came to something he had chosen, there wasn't a question in her mind. There couldn't be.

Even if it was hardly the most romantic marriage proposal anyone had ever received. Involuntarily, she ran her thumb over the fingers on her left hand. Stahl had been right; the two that had been broken had never healed exactly right.

_They hadn't had rings. When the justice of the peace performing the ceremony at the little after-hours chapel in Tahoe had asked them about it, Tig had smiled sweetly at her. "Don't worry about it, honey," he said in that almost sleepy voice that she'd learned was much more dangerous than when he actually sounded angry. "I have something nice for you back at the hotel."_

_He seemed so much calmer after it was done that she actually wondered if he might have had something nice planned. Something that, you know, other people would consider nice. He'd kicked the door shut behind him, and reached out for her left hand, holding it gently like she was something precious to him. "Give me your finger, sweetheart," he'd said and she held it out. He knew what he was doing. There was no uncertainty; the crack was audible and the pain immediate, his hand over her mouth before she could scream._

_It was agonizing. It was too much, finally, for her to take. It was perfect._

She'd written to him, once. It had to be done, although she wasn't much of a writer. She told him how sorry she was, and that she'd looked into it and either of them could start divorce proceedings; prison time for either spouse was an immediate get-out-of-marriage-free card. And she didn't need anything. And she'd go away, if that's what he wanted.

He'd sent her a terse note asking her who the hell she thought she was, and letting her know in no uncertain terms when he wanted her to do something; he'd tell her. She was pretty sure that it had been hard for him to leave a death threat out, but he'd know that they opened her mail.

And so she'd celebrated her second anniversary, alone, a couple of weeks ago. She'd spent two years clinging to the thing he'd said to her in the hotel room.

_His eyes had lit up when she'd nearly collapsed from the pain of her finger, and he'd laid her down on the floor and, she was pretty sure on a sudden impulse, grabbed her hand and done it again to the next finger. She'd have assumed there'd be a limit on how bad something could hurt—that it would just be more of the same, easier to deal with than the first one. She'd have been wrong._

_Trying to keep it together, even for him, wasn't working out too well. He didn't wait for her to start getting cold this time, but gave her a couple of those little bottles from the mini-bar and got her thoroughly drunk, so drunk it took her until she was sitting in front of Happy's gun to remember that she was actually married. That had been the first time she'd ever gotten drunk. The second was on her way to the police station in Lodi._

_After she was quiet, he'd started again. He'd always known how to slow down and make sure she could make it through the pain and out the other side where she was begging for him. This time, instructing her to keep her wrists over her head, he began touching her, slowly. He ran one finger from her lower lip down the middle of her chest, lightly flicking at her nipples on the way down, smiling when she forgot the pain in her hand, or when it just became another part of wanting him, and she arched her back in response. He followed his hands with his mouth, teasing her with the gentleness of his tongue and then letting her feel his teeth on the inside of her thigh. Her dress was gone before she realized that he'd deftly and lightly cut it off of her with what looked like the same straight razor he'd used on her cheek the first night he'd had her._

_Picking her up in one arm in that easy way he had, he carried her into the bathroom, laying her upper body over the edge of the bathtub and lightly touching her back as though he were looking for something. "You remember the first time I did this?" he said, moving the razor quickly in front of her where she could see it._

_She didn't want to move to nod. "Yes."_

"_It might be worse this time. I wasn't going to do this. But you deserve it. You really do."_

_She'd willed herself quiet as she felt the familiar cold metal slice into her shoulder, but wasn't able to keep from pressing her hips back into his as he slowly carved a second initial on her back. It seemed to take forever and be over in a moment, and he was entering her swiftly, his hands reaching forward to grab the edge of the bathtub and give him more leverage to fuck her harder than she'd imagined possible. His right hand left a bright smear of blood on the white porcelain of the tub. _

"_That one you earned," he said in her ear. "That one's for making this whole thing feel right."_

She forced herself to think about something else. She'd had two years to go over that moment in excruciating detail, meanwhile he probably didn't even remember. She felt the car slow down and turn, and opened her eyes. She must have actually fallen asleep, because they were in the Teller-Morrow lot, and—her heart nearly stopped—he was standing right outside the clubhouse, leaning against the wall, arms folded. Smiling.

She didn't even wait for Bobby to fully stop the car before she was out the door, and she stumbled a bit as she ran over to him. Damn Gemma and her high heels. He was looking her over, the smile on his face deepening to a sneer, and she stopped halfway there and slowed down, looking down as she approached him cautiously, reverently. She only flicked her eyes up once, when she'd almost reached him, to see if she had permission to get closer. He gave her a slight nod, and beckoned her closer to him. He had that look, the one that said he had all kinds of plans and she wasn't going to like any of them, but then all of a sudden it went away, and his hands were tangled in her hair and pulling her upward and his teeth had found her lower lip. He pressed himself against her nearly hard enough to break every bone in her body, and almost as if the words were being dragged out of him he started to say "Happy to see-" and she hadn't even waited for him to finish before she was already answering. "Oh, _yes_," she said frantically, "oh _God_, yes."

"Holy shit," Juice said, stunned. Bobby couldn't find anything to say at all. They spent half the ride home worried about what Tig was going to do, but neither of them had thought this scenario was anywhere close to a possibility.

From where they were parked, they could see that Tig now had Aisha against the wall, and her legs were wrapped around his waist. _Damn, _Juice thought. _That girl has been locked up a __while_. He watched as Tig broke off the kiss, seeming confused, and looked around. One hand at her throat, he pushed her off of him until she was standing again, and he was holding her at arm's length. He looked her slowly up and down, in a way that seemed totally familiar to both of them, and ran his hand down the length of her side, pausing to grasp her hip firmly. Because his face was in Juice's full view, he had a chance to see Tig's expression—it was one he'd seen before, when the man was deciding that something reckless seemed like just the thing to do. He could practically hear Tig decide that, fuck it, he was going to do what he wanted.

He'd been dressed to ride as he stood out there, probably intending to turn his back and leave her there as soon as he'd said or done whatever he'd planned, but instead he grabbed her wrist and pulled her towards his bike. In an absolutely practiced routine with no wasted movements, he grabbed his helmet, thrust another one at her, and got on. In an instant she was behind him, and they had roared out of the lot. Juice and Bobby stood staring after them for a few moments, utterly unable to speak.

"Jesus Christ," Bobby finally said.

"What the hell was that?" Juice asked.

Bobby shook his head. "Hell if I know." He started towards the clubhouse. "Come on," he said, "I think I need a drink."

**-0-**

Clay had pulled Bobby into the chapel almost immediately after he'd gotten in. "Any problems getting' her?" he asked Bobby, struggling with the cap to one of the decanters that Gemma had moved most of the liquor into when his hands had gotten worse. Not having to be unscrewed, these were supposed to be easier, but lately he'd been having trouble with everything.

"None at all."

"How'd she look?"

Bobby chuckled. "Aisha? Like ten pounds of adorable in a five pound bag. I thought Juice was going to commit a felony." He shook his head. "Looks like Tig liked the sight of her, too."

Clay looked up, surprised. "Tig? What happened?"

"Stood out there lookin' like the coldest motherfucker you ever saw, then got one look at the Mrs. and attacked her like she was his last meal and he'd been starving."

Clay shook his head. "Shit."

"Nah, it was a beautiful thing. Pulled her onto the back of his bike and I bet they're working things out right now, although I don't see a lot of _talking_ in their immediate future."

Clay didn't want to explain it to Bobby. Maybe he was wrong. But he knew Tig pretty well, and if she'd been able to get that kind of reaction out of him, the man was just going to be that much worse when his shock wore off. You didn't nurse two years of white-hot rage and then give it all up because you realized the girl was a pretty little thing. Not if you were Tig, you didn't. And Aisha—well, all her defenses would be gone, when he finally turned on her. Clay sighed and put it out of his mind. He could always be wrong, after all.

"How're the hands?" Bobby asked abruptly.

Clay stared at him. It wasn't like any of the guys to ask that question directly, and Bobby was the last one he'd have expected it from. "They hurt. They hurt yesterday, they're gonna hurt tomorrow, it is what it is. What it's been. What brought _that _up in your mind?"

Bobby shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "You think it might get bad with Tig and Aisha, why have her here?" he asked.

Clay stared at him. "What the fuck is with these questions? What the hell are you getting at?"

Bobby shrugged. "Wonderin' why you went down there, is all. To see her. The others know how often you went? Gemma know? Jax?"

Clay met Bobby's eyes without speaking, looking patient but like Bobby better get to the end of his point.

Bobby looked back at him. "You ever hear that federal agent go on about how the women know everything? That's what they say about all of this, the life, what we do. The women know everything. I guess that must be true across the board, huh?" He paused, waited to see if Clay would stop him. When he didn't, Bobby went on. "That tip you got on which border crossing those Mexican guns that were going to the Mayans were coming though on, that didn't come from Unser, did it? Can't see where he would have found out about it, anyway."

Clay smiled. "Where you goin' with this?"

"Where'd you find out about it?"

Clay made a decision. Looked like Bobby had it all figured out anyway. "Someone might have let something slip around Aisha, down at Valley. She said she didn't even think the girl knew what she was saying—didn't know it was guns, even—so there wasn't likely to be any blow-back on her. That what you're worried about? I take care of that kid."

Bobby shook his head. "Shit. You were goin' down there to get intel." He didn't know if he was horrified or impressed.

Clay snorted. "What, you think I was making that ride every month to get my dick sucked? Cameras all over that room."

Bobby nodded. "This is for later, isn't it? All this info you're getting' together... you're not bringing it up with the rest of the club."

"You sayin' you don't trust me?"

Bobby looked at him. "I'm sayin' that looks to me like you're making plans. And if I could figure all that out on my own... well, I'm pretty sure Jax could too."

Clay raised an eyebrow. "I need to be worried about you pointin' him in a direction?"

Bobby shook his head. "No. I don't take a side here, bro, but I just want to protect what we've built. Right now, looks to me like that's what you're trying to do. You know you've got my vote at that table."

Clay gave Bobby a long, slow smile. "That's good," he said. "Don't think I'm going to forget that when it comes time to look around at who had my back all these years."

They drank in silence for another minute, and then Bobby sighed. "You don't think his good mood's gonna last, huh?"

Clay shook his head. "Nah. And he's gonna be worse when it wears off."

Bobby felt depressed. He liked the kid. "Jesus, Clay," he said. "You had to give her the room right next to his?"

Clay made a dismissive gesture. "I'm not gonna have this thing hangin' around poisoning the atmosphere for months. One way or another, he gets it out of his system. He gets over bein' mad, they work it out, that girl is never going anyplace. She'd die before she'd leave him. Or, her bein' that close sets him off to finally cutting it off for good. Then I can think about where I need her without worryin' how he's gonna take it."

Bobby almost laughed. Clay had never really forgiven Tig for handing Aisha over to Happy to prevent Clay from doing... exactly what it sounded like he was doing now. Treating Aisha like a piece of SAMCRO property he wanted to use to his best advantage. The man's lack of self-knowledge was staggering. But when it came to holding things together, keeping things going... well, Bobby trusted him. It was as simple as that.


	3. Chapter 3

**_You didn't really think it would be that easy for those two, did you? Of course not._**

**_Also, I'm introducing a new female OC. Because Aisha and V can be jagged little pills, both of them, so I wanted to try throwing someone a little nicer into the mix._**

-0-

There wasn't any uncertainty; they'd just fallen right into it again. Their old apartment was gone, but they rode to one of the spots outside of town where they'd sometimes end up when it seemed like he just wanted to look at her somewhere different. As soon as he pulled off the highway and onto the dirt road she could remember doing this five or six times before, years ago, and it felt like she'd never left.

He pulled the bike off to the side of the road when it started turning into more of a path and getting to difficult to navigate, and she obediently followed him as he paced a few yards away, then quickly turned and looked at her.

"You look... real good," he said.

She hadn't expected that, wasn't sure he'd _ever_ said it in all the time she'd known him, and she couldn't keep herself from blurting out "Seriously? I didn't have anything else, but I kind of expected you to hate it."

He didn't answer, just kept looking at her, with the same calm, meditative stare. They'd wandered into a slightly more wooded area, and she backed against a cypress tree and leaned against it. Even being near him was making it hard for her to stand up. The sight of him there had hit her like a gunshot, and had the same certainty and finality.

When she was younger, he'd been the entire world. There hadn't been any other man in existence but him, and his eyes and hands and voice and leather were the only things she could connect with maleness... the way he made her feel when she looked at him was his and his alone. She missed it. Because then he'd brought her to the club, and she'd met all of them, and, thinking back over some thoughts she'd had about Happy when Tig had made his pronouncement, or when he'd come down to visit her... thinking about the way Juice had looked her over as she was getting in the car... well, yeah, now the world was a lot bigger and full of men with hard hands and voices and black leather and eyes that didn't compromise. And it didn't fucking matter.

Because right now she knew, beyond any doubt, that none of them, and nobody else, was ever going to measure up to him. Ever.

Part of her had hoped it might be different. That she'd get there, and see him, and realize that he was just another man and something she could live without.

No. The only difference now was that now she _knew._

He was still staring at her. Jesus, this was hard. _Pull yourself together_, she told herself. _Be what he'd want you to be. Stand up straight. He didn't let you stay because you were weak. If you want to be with him now, that kid bullshit isn't going to work._ She fumbled into the inside pocket of her jacket and pulled out a cigarette, but before she could light it, he had it out from between her fingers. "What the fuck?" he snapped. "No."

And right then, she saw everything change in his face.

-0-

Was it really going to be this easy? _Could_ it be?

As Tig watched her standing there, leaning back, staring up at him, he suddenly thought _Well yeah. Maybe. Why the hell not?_ It would be so easy to just let it all go, and let himself enjoy that feeling of ownership that always welled up when he looked at her.

It was as if the two years away had perfected her, stripped her down to just what he wanted. She'd grown up just enough—it had never been about her youth, and he approved of all the changes he saw in that direction—but all the things he'd needed were still there, responses locked into place the way he'd set them years ago. When she'd made that tiny pause, needing his permission before she could approach him, it pushed him over the edge... precisely because there's been a time he could expect to see that two or three times a week, for years. And then, just as suddenly, it had been gone.

He could have it back now, if he wanted. Just put it all out of his mind, the grudge he'd been nursing for two years, and let her serve him again, which he knew was all she wanted to do. She'd be right there with him. She'd wait on him devotedly, and demand nothing in return. He remembered the night he'd thrown her out into the hallway, knew that he could do it every night from here on in, if he wanted, if he decided to let her back into his bed. She looked, in this moment, so goddamn good that all he wanted to do was throw her down onto the ground right here, show her who she belonged to, and then bring her back to the clubhouse and put her to work. He wanted to see the scar on her back, the one he'd never had a chance to see healed, and feel it under his lips and hear her moan and feel her moving back against him...

Then something happened that he couldn't explain. Her eyes broke his gaze, and rather than the yielding, the focus, he'd expected to find there, he saw her _pull herself together_. Set her jaw a bit, pushing down her fear. She pulled a cigarette out of her pocket and started to light it, but by that time he was already back to the same cold rage of the past two years, like there'd never been a break in it. Who the fuck was she to pull herself together? To turn off the way she felt about him, to stay in control in front of him? He remembered the yielding he'd always felt in her—hell, he'd felt it at the clubhouse an hour ago. If she could get over that at will, (_and she must be able to if she could fucking drug him_, he reminded himself), then how much could he really let it mean to him? Was it was something she doled out to him like a gift, just like she gave him two years of her life that he'd never asked for, and now people acted like he owed her? If there was one thing he was not going to let stand for even a second, it was some idea that he owed Aisha jack shit.

He pulled the cigarette out of her mouth and tossed it away. "No," he said, then let himself just move into that place where he didn't feel anything. It was something he had to be able to do, to do the job he did, and it was, he decided, the best way to deal with her.

"So this is how it's going to be," he said, in a voice that made her immediately snap to attention. "You're here. You're going to stay here, so don't get any ideas about going off and starting a life. You're gonna stay right where we can keep an eye on you, and you're gonna do what you're told."

She nodded, once.

He gave her a contemptuous stare. "You're not my problem," he said. "If I want you, if there's nothing else around, then that's one thing. Other than that, you are nothing to do with me. You don't get to speak to me, you don't get to _look_ at me, and you _damn_ sure better not think you can touch me. Are we clear?"

She nodded again. He noticed that she looked sick, even faint, but that she was standing up straight and listening to him carefully.

"One more thing," he said. "I handed you over to someone else, and that person was not _Clay_. Am I clear on that too? You do whatever work Clay tells you to do, that's fine, but if there's anything you're not sure about, anything you need permission on, you do not take it to Clay, and you sure as _fuck_ don't take it to_ me_, do you understand? As for the rest of it... whatever Hap decides is the way it's going to be. He tells you to keep out of sight at the clubhouse, or he tells you he wants you working every single fucking party, you don't ask him any questions and you _don't_ bring any appeals to me. Do you understand?"

This time, he saw, there was a moment's hesitation, even horror. Then she nodded.

"If you're a good girl," he said in a voice full of venom, "a _really_ fucking good girl, I might let you near me, a bit. Let you take care of some of my shit, maybe even fuck you when I can't find anything else. But remember—no looking, no touching, and no speaking to me, you understand? You think you can keep all of that in your head?"

She nodded a final time, eyes closed.

He reached out and grabbed the collar of her jacket, nearly jerking her off of her feet, and for a moment he thought he might want pull her to him again, but this time it was a lot easier to withstand the urge. Besides, he didn't want to fuck up a good thing. The look on her face, the look he was sure was in the eyes she didn't dare raise to him... well, you just didn't get something like that out of a girl every day.

**_-0-_**

**_-0-_**

**_-0-_**

**_New OC, new perspective, several hours later that night._**

Audrey had noticed the two women as soon as they came into the bar. She'd chosen the place because it wasn't a place Sons hung out, and she didn't want to run into anyone tonight who might remind her of what had happened, so she'd pressed her best friend Lily to indulge her and let them do their drinking somewhere more out-of-the-way, and since Gwen, a friend of hers from high school, was cocktail waitressing here and could help Audrey get drunk on the cheap, it had seemed just the ticket.

And now, possibly the most frightening woman (short of Gemma) who was connected to the MC had just walked in, looking like she owned the place. Although Audrey couldn't place the smaller woman with all the hair, she looked pretty damn Sons-affiliated, and they'd chosen a spot near the wall that commanded a view of the entire room, and made it next to impossible for them to be taken by surprise. That was a Sam Crow thing, too. And the taller one... Audrey looked twice to make sure... Yeah. It was definitely, absolutely V.

She didn't know if V. had the first idea who she was, but among the circles in which Audrey traveled, knowledge of who V. was was passed around practically your first night there, along with "don't piss off Gemma" and "be out by 9am." Any old lady merited some respect, but V. was different. Not only was she Jax Teller's old lady, but she was apparently associated with MC business in ways that Audrey had thought women were explicitly forbidden from being. As if that weren't scary enough, she apparently had been a participant in a local fighting ring, and had shown more than once that she was not to be fucked with where Jax was concerned.

Audrey saw Gwen make her way over to the two women and start to take their drink orders, then catch the boss's eye. Looking like it was the last thing she wanted to do, she leaned over and said something to the smaller woman, who nodded and pulled a card out of her wallet and handed it over. Gwen scrutinized the card for a moment, and then looked across the bar, her eyes meeting Audrey's in an_ oh, shit_ expression. Handing it back, she looked like she couldn't take the drink order fast enough, and she slammed the ticket down in front of the bartender and headed to Audrey's table.

As soon as she got to Audrey's table, Gwen lowered her voice. "You might want to leave," she said. "I mean it. Like right now."

Audrey looked up at her, terrified but uncomprehending. "What?" she said. "Seriously? I don't have beef with V. None I know about, anyway."

Gwen shook her head so hard her earrings rattled. "Not V. That other chick? One I just carded? Looks like that's Mrs. Trager."

Audrey couldn't keep herself from staring over there. _That _was his wife? That girl was married to the guy who, last night, had... she forced herself to think about something else, but couldn't stop staring. _Holy shit, she's just gotten out of prison,_ thought Audrey, wondering for a moment if someone had been keeping and eye out, if Tig's wife hadn't decided to make this personal, and had brought V with her. Wasn't there a prison clause? Did it count, the day someone got out?

**-0-**

"So, tell me," V said, after they'd downed the first round of shots. "How did it go."

Aisha thought about telling V. that she didn't want to talk about it, but oddly, she kind of did. "It was hard. It was bad," she said. "He's really not happy with me, and he's not giving me a chance to make any of it up to him."

V looked astonished, and gestured towards the skittish waitress for another round. "Make it _up _to him?" she asked. "Make _what _up to him? Seems to me like you're the one who needs some making up to."

Aisha looked startled, then instinctively made a sound of protest.

"No," V said. "You _do_. Shut up. What, two years of prison were just like summer camp?"

Aisha looked like she was thinking about it. "I never went to summer camp," she said. She was silent for a minute, then shrugged. "It sucked. You know, like it does. But it wasn't hell on earth. I missed him, most of all. As for the rest of it... Clay made sure it would be OK."

_Of course he did, _thought V. Only Clay would have to find a way to make it seem like somehow Aisha was the one who owed the club, instead of the other way around. And she'd fallen for it, too. She wouldn't question, wouldn't dare challenge the club on anything, because she'd be afraid that anything she did could put her further outside of Tig's good graces.

"So you guys... I mean, sorry for asking, but are you still _together_?"

Aisha almost smiled, but it looked sad. "I... no. But I keep telling myself, I mean, were we ever? I mean, "together" in that way that, like, you and Jax are? And, he won't let me divorce him, so..." she looked up at V., and the hope in her eyes was so naked that V. wanted to look away.

In fact, all she could think to do was call for another round. There wasn't a single bit of advice she could give Aisha—nothing she knew about how to handle these situations was going to help, and she didn't know if she wanted to mentally put herself in Aisha's place to try to think of how she'd react. She stayed quiet for a bit, but then something occurred to her. After the third shot, and hating herself a bit for it, V. found herself asking casually, "he's not pushin' you any more on this Happy thing, is he?"

Aisha, who V reflected probably hadn't done much drinking, choked a bit, in a way that V would have found funny under different circumstances. She downed the rest of the shot quickly.

She looked, V noted, equal parts sad, frightened, and—it took her awhile to recognize it, partly because she couldn't remember having seen it on Aisha's face before—_angry?_ "It's not fucking _fair," _she muttered. She wasn't standing up as well as V. was to the tequila, and V. noticed she was slurring her words. V. waited another minute for Aisha to say some more, but instead the girl just put her head on the table, looking like she couldn't wait for the world to end. "I'm sorry," she said to V. "I just... thinking about all this, it kinda... shit, V., could you take me back home?"

_She calls the clubhouse "home" too, _thought V., as she loaded Aisha into the front seat of the car. She herself could barely feel the shots, but they seemed to have hit Aisha pretty hard. _I wonder how long that's gonna last. _


	4. Chapter 4

_**I realize setting the scene for where everyone stands two years later is taking a bit of time, but after this, I promise we'll get back to our regularly scheduled trips to the dark side... although it might not happen the way you'd think. Also, although I know Lyla's a season two character and technically wouldn't be in this, I like her and Ope, so I'm keeping her. She's been around for a couple of years at this point.**_

**-0- **

Without any preamble, Gemma looked up and said "I want to have a dinner for Aisha this weekend."

Clay had just walked into the office, and he looked like he wanted to walk right back out at Gemma's words. "I don't think it's wise," he said. "Not with all the..." he waved his hand disgustedly "potential unpleasantness."

Gemma made a derisive sound. "If it's drama you were trying to avoid, you might have thought of that before puttin' her in to live with the boys." She shook her head. "Nah, I've been thinking about it. It's the right thing to do. Besides, we haven't gotten everyone together in a while." She didn't say what she was thinking, but Clay picked up on the subtext... there hadn't been a dinner since it started looking like he might have to step down any day now. Maybe that had been a mistake.

"Tig ain't gonna like it," said Clay, acknowledging by his warning that he'd given in.

Gemma chuckled a bit. "Ahhh, we'll invite 'em all. Opie, Lyla and the kids, Jax and V... there'll be enough chaos that he can glare at her all he wants and it'll still be a nice time."

Despite himself, Clay smiled. It had been awhile since he'd had a chance to play the patriarch. _Would it be so bad, _he asked himself, _if that's just what you did? Just watched over what you had built, finally got a little time alone with Gemma, even? _While it was an appealing thought, his mind rebelled at the idea of doing it powerless. Weak. Old. Without thinking about it, he started rubbing his hands. "Guess I'll go tell her," he said. "Needed to talk to her anyway."

Gemma watched him leave, her brows knit together. The man didn't even know how transparent he was, she thought. _When he starts rubbin' his hands, that's him feelin' old, _she thought. _And when that happens, lately, he seems to come up with an excuse to talk to her. _

It was something she'd thought about carefully, when things were being planned for Aisha's release from prison. Gemma had put herself in charge of making sure everything was settled for the return, even going a little overboard in terms of being welcoming. In some ways it wasn't a difficult thing to do... despite herself, Gemma had found herself actually liking the girl, and the matter-of-fact way she'd approached doing the time for Tig reminded Gemma of how she herself might have felt about it. _Can't see why he has to be such a damn baby about it, _she thought. Gemma had realized in a moment that Aisha had weighed her two years against the rest of Tig's life and made the smart call, the call she herself would have made in Aisha's place, and done it with as little histrionics or hesitation as picking up his lunch. That alone went a long way with Gemma.

There was a bit more to her welcome, though. Gemma had decided, the first time Clay had gone down there and thought he was keeping that fact concealed, that she was going to keep Aisha as close as possible. Too close, too _family_ for Clay to be able to justify hittin' her, if that's the direction he was headed. Gemma usually didn't give other women particularly high status in the club until they'd been around a while, but in this case, as much of a reminder that not only was the girl Tig's _wife_ but she was Gemma's _friend,_ might be the only thing that would make him think twice.

She didn't fault Clay for it, or Aisha for being the unaware focus of his attention, but it wasn't something that could be allowed to happen. She knew Clay had Aisha working for the Club (_working for him, _her mind amended, _don't pretend you don't know he's buildin' side action_) and that couldn't be allowed to turn into sex—or this was one of those cases where she might find herself dealing with a long-term sidepiece and not some sweetbutt hookup on the road.

**-0-**

Aisha was glad the place was empty, had delayed coming out of her room until she was pretty sure the guys were all out someplace. She'd woken up to realize she'd slept in her clothes, on top of the blankets someone had carefully tucked onto her bed. At least she'd kicked off her boots. She needed a shower to feel human again, and after it she couldn't help wishing she had some slightly less Gemma-like clothes. Everything Gemma had gotten her seemed to have a plunging neckline, and while Aisha reflected that Gemma could probably pull that off, she wasn't quite as well-equipped in that department as Gemma. Everything was either falling off, or showing way too much. Finally, in frustration, she yanked on a black V-neck t-shirt and black pencil jeans, and let her hair fall around her face. She wouldn't let herself think about what Tig had said to her yesterday, _would not_, but she found herself dealing with something she'd never felt before...the need to cover her scar.

The clubhouse's empty main room felt more inviting than the place ever had before, and she spent a few minutes looking around, before she went over to the pool table. Like every kid she'd known whose parents were too fucked up for them to go home, she'd spent some time hitchiking down to the pool hall. You couldn't get into a bar at fourteen, but they were less picky over there. She knew her way around a table, but it had been a few years.

She was just messing around really, getting a feel for the table after all this time, sinking the balls neatly surprised at how quick it came back to her. It let her do some thinking. It might not be too bad to be here. She knew that Tig wouldn't let her near him directly, but she could probably make herself useful around the place, fix up her room a little, maybe see if Gemma needed her for anything. She'd done what Clay wanted, built some relationships while she was inside, and she knew that was part of what she was here for... on the Club side of things, at least. She knew what her own priorities were, but that was going to take time. He might never want her back. That had to be acknowledged.

"Look at that," she heard a voice behind her. "Wasn't expecting to see you so settled in already."

Aisha's next shot went wildly off, the cue ball flying off the table. Happy caught it neatly, and replaced it where it had been. "Seriously, kid, how's it been?" he asked, looking intently at her.

She found herself taking a step or two back, and knew he noticed. After they'd had the one talk to clear things up, on the way to V's apartment, neither of them had ever brought up what Tig had said. During the times he'd visited, they'd developed the sort of easy friendship that could sometimes happen between people who weren't real big talkers, and had this been the visiting room at Valley she'd have given him a friendly hug and a smile. Now, in light of Tig's words the day before, she didn't know how to react to him. She felt a surge of resentment... he had to have known about this, and hadn't bothered to prepare her for it. She gave him a shrug, moving the cue stick from hand to hand and shaking her curls over her face. Although she didn't realize it, it was one of the boyish gestures from her childhood, and made her look like a nervous but defiant thirteen-year-old.

Happy stood there for a few moments, taking stock of the situation. He'd gotten a call from Tig last night that had made him decide to make the ride down a day early, and he'd picked a time he knew the man wouldn't be around to come say hi to her, but he hadn't really planned it out. He guessed, if he had to think about it, that he'd hoped whatever Tig had said to her wouldn't seem quite as serious as it had to him—that maybe this could be a responsibility that he just kept to himself, interacting with her much as he always had, but just watching over her a bit from a distance. Didn't seem like that was the case, though, and although he knew it was unfair, a part of him was annoyed with her. If Tig had told her things were going to be a certain way, that should have just been the end of it, and she should be making this easier on him, instead of leaving him standing here wondering what the fuck to say to her.

_Relax, _he told himself. _She's a kid. Jesus, she's probably terrified of what you're going to tell her to do. _The idea of demanding anything sexual from Aisha vaguely amused him. In the two years he'd known her, he'd been unable to see her that way... oh, she was cute enough, but if anything, she reminded him of a kid sister. He couldn't help thinking it was ironic, how that protective instinct had been born when he held the gun to her head. For some reason, the thought of how close he'd come to killing her was oddly relaxing, and at least for him, it broke the tension. Maybe it made Tig's whole thing seem to make sense, somehow. _I let her keep her life, _he thought. _Think of it that way._

He pulled a pool cue down from the wall. "Rack 'em," he said. "I could use a game."

She pushed her hair back with one hand, then couldn't resist a hint of a smirk. "If you're sure," she said, the slightest touch of a challenge in her voice. He raised an eyebrow. Was she fucking _kidding _him?

**-0-**

In spite of himself, Clay stopped to watch the scene between Jax and V. While he couldn't imagine letting a woman scream at him like that, he had to admit, Jax had disrespected his old lady pretty badly. He wondered, though, if she really wanted to throw down with Jax that hard with Tara at the house waiting for him. _That one had her hooks in pretty deep, _he thought. _V might not know what she's getting into. She throws him out this time, with that doctor waiting, there may be no takin' him back in a month, when she gets over it._

He shook his head. He needed to ask Aisha a few things, and he'd waited until the clubhouse was empty, telling himself he didn't want to be interrupted every five seconds. He also wanted to find out, by looking at her if nothing else, where things stood with Tig. That kid could not hide a single thing when it came to the man.

When he pushed the door open, though, and his eyes adjusted from the sunlight outside, he saw that she wasn't alone—Happy was in the process of beating her soundly at a game of pool. Deciding not to be annoyed for the moment—though he'd told fuckin' Hap to spend a few days away—he leaned against the wall and watched. They were both too engrossed in their game to realize he'd come in, and he'd wondered what their interactions would actually look like. Was Hap hittin' her yet? Tig had basically given him an engraved invitation, and Clay figured Hap would at least give her a try. _As far as she's concerned, he might as well be me, _Tig had said to Clay last night, telling him again that as far as everyone had better be concerned, the girl was Hap's property. _I found her, I practically fuckin' raised her, I married her, I can do what the fuck I want with her. _Clay had rolled his eyes and told Tig yet again that this fixation of his was fucking twisted, but he'd realized that it tied his hands somewhat in relation to Aisha.

Over the course of the games—they were on their third right now—Happy noted that he and Aisha seemed to have reached some kind of accord. They were back to the easy, calm, wisecracking way they'd had when he visited her, and he'd missed that. The kid had a pretty dark sense of humor, and if anything, the tension that lay between them had added a bit more of an edge to it. He'd won the last two games—although he'd had a few minutes' worry in the second one—but the third game had been his since the break, and by this point they'd hit their stride with the running commentary. At least in that regard, she was giving back as good as she got.

"You know," he said, neatly sinking another ball, "the way this is looking, you might want to just walk away. I'm thinkin' this is finished for you."

She gave him a sweet smile. "Oh, I don't know," she said. "Seems to me that you like to talk more than you like to finish things." She feigned innocence. "I mean, that would be _my_ experience, if, you know, a certain morning in Tahoe's any indication."

This was a recurrent theme of the jokes that ran between them, but the fact that they'd gotten here this quickly did show there was some strain. He choked back a laugh in spite of himself, and missed the next shot. He wasn't too worried. She had twice as many balls on the table as he did, and obviously hadn't played in a while. "If that's someplace you wanna go," he said, "I don't know if you're gonna be able to talk your way out of_ this_ one."

She collapsed into giggles, but managed to sink her shot. He waited until she'd lined up for the next one, and then sweetly asked her if maybe she wouldn't like some water. Her ball missed the pocket by an inch.

He took his last few shots quickly and then lined up on the eight ball. "It's over," he said to her with a smirk. Unfortunately, it was one of those moments when the perfect shot was almost too perfect. The cue ball kissed the nine, but it didn't go in. He groaned inwardly, but smiled at her. He'd left her with nothing on the table, that he could tell.

Aisha took a long, slow walk around, and then spent some time positioning.

"Don't drag this out, kid," he said. "It's not gonna get any easier." Suddenly, he'd found that he was speaking a bit more slowly, and that his voice and dropped out of its wisecracking tone and into... something else. He wasn't sure what—it wasn't the way he talked to a woman he was planning to take to bed, either. Different, somehow. He moved a little closer to her and dropped his voice, not sure really why he was doing it, and said "It's over."

She'd heard it that tone in his voice too, and her eyes met his over the cue stick. He got the sense she was making a decision, and that maybe this was about more than a pool game. "Hap," she said softly in her baby voice, "I've learned anything about you, it's that it's _never _over." She barely tapped the cue ball, just lightly sending it about a half an inch closer to the pocket, behind the nine. A fucking safety. She stepped around to his side of the table and looked up at him. "It's not _over," _she said, "until you pull the trigger."

They looked at each other for a moment that stretched out a little too long. It wasn't that he wanted to touch her exactly, but he found himself suddenly thinking of her as potentially the most unsatisfying woman he was ever gonna know, in a few different ways. On the heels of that came the realization that he'd thought _woman _and not _kid. _ The tension was worse now than when he'd walked in the room, with Aisha looking like she suddenly wasn't sure what she'd gotten herself into, and he broke it by taking the shot a bit too hastily.

She'd positioned well. Scratch. He looked down at her, not sure if he was furious or wanted to laugh. _It's one game, _he thought, and decided on the laughing, _but remember she doesn't play fair. Too fuckin' singleminded._

He could see she'd caught his look, and she didn't push her luck by laughing, or even smile. Besides, Clay was laughing hard enough for both of them. "This kid," he said conversationally to Happy, "is really something else, isn't she?"

"Yes," he said, looking into her eyes, pushing it a bit that they both knew where things stood between them, "she definitely is."


	5. Chapter 5

Alone with Clay, Aisha lit one of her cigarettes. She'd never been in this room of the clubhouse before, the one they called the chapel, but it had a nice air about it. She was struck by how unbelievably hard to clean that table carving must be, though.

"Everything ok when you were inside?" Clay asked. "Nobody try to give you drama toward the end?"

Aisha shook her head. "It's not someplace I'd go just to get out of the house," she said, "but really things were fine. Got a bit more comfortable being around a lot of people—you kind of have to."

Clay nodded.

"Oh, you'll like this," she said. "Looks like I'm gonna be Laroy's nephew's godmother—his sister was in there for a year, and we kept in touch."

Clay raised his eyebrow. "Yeah?" he said. "That's real nice. Maybe not the worst idea, either, to make some of those connections a bit more personal."

Aisha nodded and exhaled smoke. "Pretty sure Laroy thinks so too."

After few more minutes of info-downloading disguised as small talk, Clay leaned forward and rested his hand on top of hers. "So how are you holding up?" he asked in a concerned tone. "He making it tough for you to be back here?"

Aisha looked down at his hand, and then back at him. "Come on, Clay" she said. "You know I'm not going to come to any of you with any complaint about him. Ever." She took her hand out from underneath his, but tempered the gesture by resting her fingers lightly on his forearm. "And this whole sympathy thing? Wasn't something I appreciated coming from Jax, but at least he had the excuse of really not getting how things were."

Despite himself, Clay laughed. "Jax still takes shit for letting you get his gun like that." He sat back. "You're a tough kid."

She shook her head. "Not really," she said, wondering why of all people she was choosing to confide in Clay. "I just can fake it better now."

"Fair enough," he smiled. "Hey, I'm supposed to tell you—Gemma wants to have a dinner to welcome you back. You should go see her about it... she's in the office."

After Aisha left, Clay lit a cigar and tried to fix his mind on this problem he seemed to have. On the one hand, she'd proven yet again that keeping her around might be a good idea. On the other hand, if he had to be honest about it, his sergeant-at-arms was a lot more valuable to him than this girl, and if it was going to throw Tig off his game, maybe it wasn't worth it. Seeing her with Hap made Clay realize that putting a girl up at the clubhouse might not have been the best idea. _You'd think I'd have learned my lesson with fuckin' V, _he thought. _Aisha's not like V, though. She won't make trouble on purpose. _Somehow, though, he couldn't keep himself from thinking that that very fact might not make the trouble worse when it came.

-0-

Aisha couldn't help the weight of nervousness that settled around her throat. A fucking _dinner. _

She wasn't sure what she'd even be expected to _do _at a dinner. _Sit at a table and talk to people while eating_, she guess, _but Jesus Christ, wasn't there some way to start small?_ Twenty-one years old, okay, it was probably time to learn how to navigate something like that, but maybe she could try something first that was smaller than a full-on Gemma-holding-court MC-welcome-home meal. Because now that she thought about it, she was pretty sure she couldn't remember anyone having her over to dinner, ever. Unless you counted foraging from the cabinets at someone else's mom's house when her own was too fucked up to remember to buy food. She'd never even been _out _to dinner. Well, she guessed there was that one time they'd driven down to the coast and thought about stopping in at this nice-looking place for some clams or something, but the hostess had taken one look at Tig's cut and her scar and gotten all twitchy, so they just grabbed a few things to go. Which was fine; she'd be absolutely okay with "rooms full of people" being on the list of things she just didn't deal with.

_Stick by Gemma, _she thought. _Or stick by V; whatever she does will probably make it so nobody'll even pay any attention to you. _Speaking of which, there seemed to be something going on between V and Jax right now, over by her car, some kind of argument. Aisha turned to go back the other way, figuring she'd find Gemma later. "Big groups of yelling people" could be another thing she'd put on her list.

Before she could move, though, she felt a hand close around her upper arm, and suddenly she knew who it was and had to fight the need to turn around and raise her eyes to his. God knows, the only thing she wanted in the world right then was to see him. Just to look at him. And now, to have him this close, and not to be able to, was like being ripped apart from the inside. At the same time, it was suddenly like she was really _here _for the first time. Everything else that had happened that morning, everything she'd said to Happy.. well, when you looked at it one way, she knew there was something not-right about it. Most people didn't find it funny that they were playing pool with someone who only hadn't killed you because he'd made good enough time on 50 to feel like having a conversation.

What it came down to, really, was that without _him _as the thing on which to focus her loyalty, it was really hard to care about anything at all, and she just became this person who was half-dead and knew it. In the moment she felt Tig's hand close around her arm hard enough to leave bruises, she found herself wondering what would happen if he never took her back—would she just turn into this automaton who set things up for Clay and went shopping with Gemma and did whatever the fuck _it_ was that she was supposed to do with Hap, and spent the rest of the time just staring at a wall? And would someone remind her again why the fuck she'd been so excited to come _out_ of prison?

Then his other hand found the back of her neck, and just like he always had, he made all the voices in her head shut the fuck up, and it was all just stillness while she listened for what he wanted.

She could just see that he was wearing his mechanic's shirt, and his hands were dirty. When he moved his hand from behind her neck and ran his thumb along her lower lip, she could tell he was leaving a mark. She felt like she could stand there forever letting her cover her with evidence that he'd been there. She wasn't fighting it anymore, the looking down, the following what he wanted. She suddenly realized that all she'd needed was to know he was getting something out of this, and that all of this might just be another way of getting to hurt for him, and she closed her eyes and tried to let everything about her show him that if this is what he wanted, she wanted it too.

"You're my little girl, aren't you?" he said, half to himself. He could tell she didn't even know she was trembling, hadn't even heard the little sound that escaped her when he put his hand on her neck. Any other woman, they'd be either pushing him away or asking something of him right now. "Don't answer that," he told her. "No talking. Don't worry, I know."

Her face was smudged where he'd touched it, and he let go of her arm and gave her a sharp but affectionate smack on her left hip. "Get cleaned up," he told her. He leaned down slightly, and thought about telling her that this wouldn't be forever, but having her this close to him was setting him off again. He could feel what it might be like to let himself enjoy having her back—to think about what he'd been missing, and act on it. If he decided to pick her up, her legs wrapping around his waist, and bit her lip and carry her inside...

Instead, he leaned down close enough to brush his lips near her temple and breathe in the smell of her hair. It was what he'd remembered, but even out here in the sun there was an echo of Clay's cigars, of Hap's cigarettes—he let her go, and walked away. It wasn't that it drove him away from her, exactly, but it made him feel restless, somehow... and like he could make her wait a bit more, if he wanted to.

**-0-**

Happy had come out of his pool game to see V's car pull into the Teller-Morrow lot, and he hung back watching the fireworks. He hadn't really followed all the back-and-forth between Jax and V over the years, just knew that while they didn't seem able to make it work long-term, neither seemed ready to walk away. He wasn't particularly interested in the backstory, though, but was just enjoying watching V get excited.

For him, one of V's most appealing traits had always seemed to be the way she ran on pure passion. It was almost the opposite of his own way of getting things done—he'd cultivated a steady calm that most people saw as emotionless. It was all about control... not wasting his energies on show. For V, though, the more she let herself go, the stronger she seemed to be. He remembered that night she'd shown him where the Russians were hiding in the warehouse—had it been him, he'd have shut everything off and just gotten it done, but for her it was her pain, and her pride, and her refusal to allow the others to take the kill from her that had propelled her, at a time when she should have been barely able to move, to deadly and efficient action.

The others considered V a fighter, thinking back to her time in the ring, or her many battles with Jax and Chibs, the way she'd refused to bow down to Clay or Gemma. But for Hap, that was just part of the price V had to pay for being who she was... that without anywhere to go, that energy threatened to consume her. He'd seen the way she could work when she was allowed to just take it all the way. The same calm came over her as he experienced himself.

He wouldn't have wanted to tell her what he thought of her. It seemed a terrible thing to say to any woman, that he thought at her core, she was a killer. Like him.

He'd be lying if he said that was why he watched her, though. He just plain goddamn liked _looking_ at her. They way he figured it, he'd seen her at her worst... the skinny, nervous wreck he'd returned to after she'd killed King Leo, or the broken, barely-alive woman who'd insisted on taking him to that warehouse... but today, like so often when she was angry, he was seeing her at her best. There was a flush in her cheeks as she walked away from Jax, and she didn't know it, but she moved in an almost confrontationally graceful way, as if showing everyone what Jax had been stupid enough to lose.

It wasn't something he ever really planned to pursue. Hell, he'd rejected her the one night she came on to him. However many ways he turned it over in his mind, there didn't seem to be any justification—even when she wasn't Jax's old lady, his possessive feelings about her were well known. But hey, if he was walking away... if he was bringing Tara back into his life, really willing to close the door on him and V... well, Hap didn't want to make any plans yet, but it was something to keep in mind.

He saw her go in to talk to Gemma, and lit another cigarette. Maybe he'd wait for her to come out, and see if she wanted to go for a ride. It was safe enough; he knew she wouldn't be willing to risk another rejection, which ironically allowed him to spend time with her that wasn't dogged by tension. As he finished his smoke and ground it down under his boot, though, he saw her blow out of the office with Tig, and climb onto the back of his bike. He shrugged a bit. Wouldn't do any good to wonder what she thought she was up to... it might be nothing, or it might be V up to her old tricks.

He walked back into the clubhouse, and before he'd thought about it, had almost automatically given Aisha a friendly but terse order to get him a fucking drink. She brought him a beer quickly, and set it soundlessly on the coffee table in front of him. He couldn't help but notice she seemed careful to stay out of arms' reach. _Shit, _he thought, _I don't need her getting skittish now, on top of all that's going on with him. _He'd taken this responsibility on for Tig in part because he thought it might be the best idea to keep Aisha out of bounds of the rest of the club while Tig was getting his head straight, but he could see that if the girl didn't hate him yet, she would eventually. Maybe that was part of Tig's point, letting her know that he could extend his control even into directions that she'd never have chosen. He swigged his beer, putting it out of his head. He wasn't going to waste any more time trying to figure out what Tig's whole twisted point with keeping this up had been.

Juice, Hap noticed, had followed to whole exchange. A couple of years ago, he'd have made it obvious, but now only his eyes moved, and even they didn't give away much. When Clay had started relying on Juice more, giving him more responsibility as if to counter Jax's reliance on Opie's singlemindedness, it had changed Juice—shut him down, in a way. Happy got the sense from him that he knew more than he was telling, and about a year ago he'd seemed to come to some sort of decision that had left him less conflicted about some of the actions he'd had to take, but more closed-off and careful, even in the way he moved. It wasn't unusual for him to be sent out with Tig to take care of something. When Hap had overheard one of the girls at a party refer to Juice as "that hot guy—the scary one," he'd realized this wasn't the kid who'd patched in a few years ago. It was more noticeable, even, than the change in Sack.

"So that's how it works?" Juice asked him. "You just tell her what to do?"

Happy frowned. "I'm just looking out for her," he said. He didn't want to have this conversation with her around, and was pretty damn sure she wouldn't want to hear it, but Juice looked like he wasn't done. Happy caught Aisha's eye and gave her a look and a slight gesture of his head to let her know he didn't need her in here anymore, then cursed inwardly as he saw Juice raise his eyebrows as she quickly left. He didn't feel like having to explain every fucking thing.

Luckily, Juice seemed to pick up on that, and changed the subject. "If you're gonna be down here more," he said, "have you thought about doing what Clay suggested, and making it permanent?"

Happy thought about how to answer than one. The truth was, he _had _thought about it... thought about it a lot, thought about it every time he came down. The only thing that stopped him was this idea that SAMCRO had fractured, somehow. That if he was to come in, he'd have to choose a side.


	6. Chapter 6

Author note: Hey! I'm back after a long hiatus!

So the story is picking up with the dinner Gemma is having for Aisha, to which everyone's invited. It might be worth reading the last couple of chapters of Become Who You Are by anfield, to get an idea of what's happened right before this.

I'm glad to be back and taking suggestions! Um, and loving feedback. Love, love, love.

-0-

Gemma had asked Aisha over early, to help out and also to spare her the awkwardness of arriving from the clubhouse at the same time he might be. And also, if she had to admit it, to try to get the girl to put on something attractive and do something with her hair.

"Don't have much that'll fit you..." she said, thankful that Aisha was at least wearing a pair of the jeans and the needle-heeled boots Gemma had sent her down to Valley. The jeans were black, pencil-thin, made Aisha look even skinnier than she was, especially in heels. Gemma suspected Aisha would try to get away with wearing one of the ratty black t shirts she'd taken to lately. She knew that Aisha had looked for her old clothes, her flowy hippie dresses and her sandals, the silk scarves she used to tie back her hair. She knew, too, that a couple of months after Aisha'd gone inside, Tig had methodically taken everything that had belonged to her out the incinerator. Gemma hadn't told Aisha about that, but somebody must have, because she seemed to have stopped trying to look at all the way she used to, and instead spent most of her time hiding behind hair, sunglasses and cigarettes... and ratty t-shirts.

"Don't even think about it," she said, before Aisha could get out her protest about how she was dressed already. "This is my party. Can't have Miss Thing sashaying in here with Jax and thinking we don't know how to dress." She'd made a point, herself, of pulling on a coordinated and, frankly, intimidating outfit, her black silk shirt with the draped sleeves setting off the heavy brushed-silver jewelry Clay had brought back from New Mexico. Wearing real jewels would have been overdoing it, but she knew Tara would likely show up in her biker-girl drag of jeans and a tank top, and it might not do to throw off her equilibrium by having her appear one of the less put-together old ladies at the gathering. Even V, knowing her, would figure out a way to stand out, even if it was just a matter of wearing something bare enough to show off her ink, proudly making the point that none of it marked her as any man's property.

Aisha met Gemma's eyes briefly, _I don't give a shit about Jax and his woman trouble _written plainly on her face.

Gemma had had it. Enough was enough. "You want to doom-and-gloom around the clubhouse like it's your own funeral, that's none of my business," she said. "You ask me, I'd have expected more from you. But you're here, you're in my house, and you're his _wife. _Try to pull yourself together and act like that means something to you." Exasperated, she turned to go. "Borrow whatever you want. Come down when you look presentable. I could use your help in the kitchen."

-o-

Aisha didn't show up, though, and the first guests began to arrive... none of them, unfortunately, being Tig. If he thought he was going to skip this, Gemma fumed, he'd better be prepared for her to take it personally. In her heart, though, she was already starting regret this whole mess, and had been from pretty much the moment Happy roared up with V riding bitch, and Jax had started chain-smoking and glaring at her.

Gemma wouldn't have admitted it, but of all the dinners she'd planned to be perfect, she'd known _this _one was going to be from hell the moment the idea had occurred to her. Too bad, though. Someone had to do something before the situation between Tig and Aisha got any further off the rails, and she'd decided that it was kill or cure with those two—either they'd start to make some headway towards getting themselves figured out, or one of them would piss the other off enough that someone would have to walk. The way things were going? With Tig refusing the divorce, and Aisha saying she was waiting on _him_ to tell her what to do? Letting this drag out could be a bad idea. If they ended things, at least the girl could move on... although please, let it not be with Happy. _Or Clay, _her mind added. She wouldn't have said anything about it to anyone and knew that technically this was starting to qualify as an obsession, but while the rest of the guys had seemed to be adjusting to Aisha like she was a younger sister who cooked and did laundry, with Clay, there was still that something else just under the surface.

So better to play out an episode of _Can This Marriage Be Saved? _and get an answer, before things got any more tangled up than they were. She'd decided _not _to put Aisha next to Tig at the table, though... it just wasn't fair to the girl to have be ignored that up close and personal, especially not barely a week out. And now, looking around the table, she had to acknowledge that maybe she hadn't been on the top of her game when she'd made this dinner plan. She'd been so caught up with what had been going on with Clay and with the drama—or rather, the _nothing—_between Tig and Aisha, that she hadn't really thought her guest list through.

Tara was being her usual tense, sardonic self—insisting on her place in Jax's life, but unwilling to step down from a position of judgment. Apparently, she hadn't been counting on the idea that Jax would have found someone else, gone through two years of drama over it, and eventually been left on his ass. _Thought she'd swoop in here like a queen and pluck him out of the hands of some meaningless disposable pussy, _Gemma thought uncharitably. _Sorry, sweetheart. That's not quite how it is anymore. _

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, V and Happy were acting for all the world like a goddamned couple. Gemma couldn't tell if it was for Jax's benefit—a way of upstaging his entrance with Tara—something she wouldn't have put past V, but could really see Hap signing on for. Or maybe it was a pre-emptive strike on Happy's part, making it clear he wasn't here with Aisha. Either way, it wasn't something she needed to be dealing with tonight. When Gemma realized she was counting on Opie, Lyla and the kids to bring something normal and wholesome to the table, she knew she was basically fucked. _Just gonna have to ride it out, _she decided. Abel, at least, was being his usual self, into everything and inciting Opie and Lyla's usually so well-behaved brood to join him in acting up.

"So, V," Tara said in a brightly false, friendly tone, "what are your plans? Jax told me you weren't planning on settling in Charming permanently."

If the implication that V was just passing through hit home, V didn't let it show. "Hard to say," she said. "I don't like to commit to something unless I know I plan to stick it out." She let her eyes wander over to Abel as she spoke, then looked back at Tara. "Until I'm sure I know what I want, I don't plan to make anyone depend on me."

The front door slammed open with a bang and Tig stalked into the room. Tara was the only one who jumped a little, but all that meant was that the rest of them weren't letting it show. The man was not only drunk, but pretty far gone into one of his moods, nearly crackling with the sort of energy Bobby would call "bad juju." He smiled politely enough at Gemma while pulling his gloves off, but his eyes were busy scanning the room. The smile slowly transformed itself into a sneer.

"So," he asked in his softest, friendliest tone, "where's the guest of honor?"

-0-

V barely noticed Tig walk in. She felt like she'd taken a hit of something on the way over, and everything was looking just a bit brighter than it should be. She'd climbed onto the back of Hap's bike like she would have with any of the guys, when his nearness had hit her like a physical blow. Something of the way she'd felt when he tattooed her seem wedded to his physical proximity, now.

As if in response, he'd casually, as if he did it every day, reached behind him for a moment before he started the bike, and firmly grasped her right leg, his fingers pressing into the back of her knee. The intimacy of it startled her, but they were riding into the wind before she could react.

At the door, she'd paused. "Guess you'll be looking out for the kid tonight," she said. It was meant to sound flippant and sardonic, but without her realizing it, it came out an honest and direct question, not at all plaintive, just asking him directly if he had any obligations here.

He gave her a look. "The kid's not on my watch tonight," he said. "She's here as his wife and he knows it, however he plays it. Besides," he grinned. "I didn't come alone."

Still wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean, V found herself following him into Clay and Gemma's, only to be hit with Jax's stunned and silent rage, Tara's brittle little digs, and a _Please-don't-give-me-any-more-shit-today _look from Gemma. The only part of it even seemed real was Abel's barreling hug that hit her at what must have been thirty miles an hour. She felt herself almost knocked down, and a steadying but not-at-all-gentle hand at the small of her back that was gone almost before she realized. Right about that moment, still feeling the pressure of Happy's hand and looking up and seeing the flash of pain in Tara's eyes—V realized that none of it mattered, that this was possibly the most ill-conceived get-together ever devised and she was going to just have to let whatever was going to happen, happen. It was all she could do to keep from laughing when she and Happy got settled at the table, and she responded to Tara's little dig by giving back as good as she'd gotten. For possibly the first time, she felt like one of the youngest people in the room.

-0-

Juice saw her first.

He'd just walked in, the girl he'd brought hanging back a little behind him, and Aisha stood at the bottom of the stairs His date said "That's her-" and then cut herself off, but Aisha didn't seem to notice. She was craning to see into the dining room, and the first thing he saw was her back. The red shirt—he kind of thought he might have seen it on Gemma—was backless, and she'd pulled her curly hair up, so that the first thing you saw was the scar crossing her back, covering the area of her left shoulder blade.

He could feel Audrey start to take a step back, and he reached back without looking and grabbed her wrist. "Aisha," he said. "This is Audrey. It's her first time here."

Aisha turned around, and he got an impression of surprisingly red lipstick and her hair pulled off of her face, displaying her first scar, the one across her cheekbone and temple. Then she nervously chewed on one of her fingernails and slipped a little bit on one of her high-heeled boots, and she was back to being the same girl who'd been around the clubhouse, fixing Hap's coffee, so visibly and obviously hoping for a word or a look from Tig that he could hardly stand to look at her. "Hey," she said. "There's a lot of people here I don't know." She smiled absently at Audrey, who looked stricken. "I don't... I heard his voice, but I haven't seen him yet. Guess I should get it over with." She looked at both of them. "Do you think I look OK?"

Juice didn't know what to say. It was so obvious what she was trying to do, with her back and her face bared like that. He heard Audrey clear her throat. "That's an awesome top," she said. "Seriously."

-0-

It didn't start out as badly as it could have, all things considered. Tara did an obvious double-take at the scars, when Aisha sat down between her and Gemma (the seating had been deliberate—Gemma didn't plan to have Tara think she could slip into some queen's-heir-apparent role). Audrey looked terrified ("What the hell is he doing bringing her her tonight?" Clay had groaned in the kitchen. "He's been a lot tighter lately but I swear I do sometimes think Juice has got some mental challenges."). Tig looked straight at Aisha, and she looked everywhere but at him, her eyes falling most often on Lyla in a way that was mildly unsettling. Chibs had arrived and was watching Happy and V with something like interest. Clay was debating the wisdom of a toast to the Mr. and Mrs., calculating whether or not it was a good idea to toss that out there and watch his sergeant-at-arms deal with it.

Abel was saving the evening by being everyone's darling. He'd been dividing his affections between V and Tara like a born diplomat, but he seemed to have immediately taken to Aisha, or "Ishy," as he was calling her, and she was getting the lion's share of his "look at me!"s. Aisha watched him intently every time he asked, and applauded whatever stunt he performed, then resumed picking at her food and looking at Lyla. For her part, Lyla finally couldn't take it anymore.

"You seem to like kids," she said nervously, in response to another one of Aisha's blank stares.

Aisha looked startled. "Kinda, yeah."

She'd spoken so rarely at the dinner that was supposedly being hosted in her honor that the conversation at the table automatically paused when she did, so when Tig spoke out, loudly and conversationally, it was into a quiet room. "She can't have kids," he said cheerfully, serving himself some grilled asparagus from a shallow dish in the center of the table.

Lyla looked confused, obviously not having intended her remark to go there. Gemma rolled her eyes. What was _this_ now? Clay looked mildly curious and slightly annoyed, and V just seemed to be paying close attention. Aisha looked confused. "Really?" she asked. "I can't?"

Tig shook his head. "It's amazing," he said, "that I can still be surprised at how stupid you are. You are so fucking stupid, Aisha." His voice was still calm and cheerful; he might have been talking about the weather.

_I've never heard him call her by her name before, _Clay thought. _This can't be good._

Lyla cleared her throat. "I'd guess there's lots of people that can't have kids, probably."

Aisha still looked confused. "How do you know that?" she asked Tig.

He looked at her and started laughing. "Because it _never came up_." He poured some more wine. "I figured if it ever did, I'd have it taken care of. But you didn't cause me any trouble. For once. About that, at least."

Aisha looked stricken.

"That doesn't seem like a really conclusive—were you using any form of birth control?" Tara wanted to kick herself the second she started talking. Some rogue doctor instinct, mixed with the insecurity of being back in the Sons fold with the feeling like she was walking into the third reel of the movie, had made her open her mouth. She held up her hands. "Never mind," she said. "I don't want to get in the middle of this."

"Probably a good idea," Tig said to her, smiling.

"Excuse me," Aisha said, getting up and walking back to the upstairs hallway.

Tig went on eating, pleasantly.

Gemma bit off her _What the hell, Tigger,_ and just glared at him.

-0-

Lyla had followed Aisha out, and now she fought with the top of a bottle of pills, half-hiding behind the door of the hall closet. Whatever the fuck _that_ had been about, this wasn't the kind of evening she'd be able to get through straight. While the coke was in the past—mostly-she kept a decent supply of vicodin around, mostly as a habit, and there were a couple rattling around in an old pill bottle in the bottom of her bag. Thank God.

She thought about it, then rationalized that Ope was driving, the kids were thankfully oblivious to what was going on and most concerned with a rumor of an ice cream cake, and there wasn't anyone depending on her tonight. She dry-swallowed two of the pills as fast as she could, then looked up to see Aisha stepping out of the bathroom. Aisha's eyes dropped to the pill bottle and suddenly she looked as cold as Tig had at the table.

Although the pills hadn't taken effect, Lyla felt emboldened. This was getting creepy. "_What._" she snapped. "You've been staring at me all night. What, do I have something on my face?"

Aisha shook her head. "No," she said, "you don't. You just look a tremendous amount like my mother."

-0-

"What the fuck was that?" V said.

Tig shrugged. "She doesn't know _shit,_" he said. "She can barely fucking read, did you know that? This is who you're dealing with." He turned to Clay. "Just fucking remember that. Think about it for a minute, that whole thing with babies didn't even _occur _to her. You think she's so fuckin' smart? What the hell does that say about her?"

Clay had already lit one of his cigars and didn't seem to be following the conversation. At Tig's question, though, he looked up. "It says," he grinned, "that she _doesn't ask questions_."

Tig seemed at a loss for words, but V wasn't. "Whatever sick game you have going on with each other," she said, "the rest of us aren't props. You want to drag her over the coals and she wants to let you, I don't give a fuck. But when you're using us as an audience, so you can get off on it, that's about more than just you and her."

"Fine," Tig said. "I'm sure she can make a goddamn fool of herself all on her own." He turned, and seemed to notice Audrey sitting a few chairs down on his left. "Oh, hey!" he said, in happy recognition. "I know you!"

Juice looked confused. He knew Audrey had come to a couple of parties with Sack, but why would Tig know her? Tig didn't usually notice the chicks he hadn't fucked. _Shit. _Juice looked back at her, and saw her looking completely stricken, blushing the way only redheads do. Rather than let his face betray the sinking feeling he was having, he felt his eyes go dead as he looked at her. "You two know each other?" he asked.

Tig smiled. Audrey slowly nodded.

"And you came to the dinner for his _wife?" _

Tig rolled his eyes. "Let her be. She probably thought I wouldn't remember her." He winked at her. "You were great, sweetheart."

Aisha had walked back into the room, and had just sat down, but at that she stood up. "I'm sorry, Gemma," she said. "I think I should go."

"Sit down," Tig said. For the first time that night his jocular tone was gone, and in an instant he'd gone entirely cold.

Aisha sat down automatically.

Audrey found her voice. "Maybe, you know, maybe _I _should go."

Juice shrugged. "However you want it. You're walking."

"All right," said Clay. "Nobody's going anywhere until we have dessert." He smiled around the table.

Gemma looked about as exasperated as V felt. "Sure!" she said. "V, Lyla, you two think you can help me get things cleared?"

Tig picked up his plate in both hands. "Not me, girls, I'm still working on this. You outdid yourself tonight, Gem."

Jax seemed to have had enough. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he exploded at Tig. "You act like this in my mom's house?" He gestured to Aisha. "You treat _her_ like this, after what she did for you?"

There was another lightning shift from Tig the affable buffoon, to the cold killer. "What she did for me?" He looked at Aisha directly for the first time, his eyes boring into hers. "Is that what you think? You think you did this for me, so now we're even? You don't owe me anymore? I didn't take you out of there?"

She looked straight back at him. Juice expected her eyes to drop, the way they always did—it was something that even someone as unobservant as Jax, who steered clear of Aisha, had started to notice around the clubhouse. As desperate as she was to be near him, Aisha never looked directly at Tig, and on the rare occasions he addressed her, she looked down immediately. Now she just stood there and looked back at him. "Fuck you," she said. "I don't think anything. I didn't do anything to get anything from you. Just—if that's what you think—you don't know _anything." _She stood up again, and Tig stood up as well. She let her eyes wander back towards Lyla, and had a brief flickering thought that perhaps her mother hadn't actually deserved to die. When she thought about him, though, it didn't seem to matter. Nothing did. "You have never made me do anything," she said, her fingers tracing the scar on her cheek. "And you didn't make me go to jail either. I know what you did for me. I've thought about it every day for five years."

She did drop her eyes then. Juice wondered if it was the longest speech she'd ever made to him. Her head was down, and it looked as though she was crying as she fumbled with her jacket, but when she looked up, her eyes were dry. She didn't look back at Tig. If she had, everything might have been different. He already had his keys in his hand, and was ready to get her out of there.

Instead, she slipped into her jacket and walked steadily around to the other side of the table. With everyone's eyes on her, she stepped up behind Happy's shoulder and gently put a hand on his arm, speaking in a small voice. "Can we go?" she asked. "Please? Can you take me home?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Glad you guys are liking the story again! Just a bit more plot and heartwarming family hijinks before it all turns into sex and violence, I promise.**

V hoped she didn't look as stunned as Tig did. His mouth was half-open and he stared quizzically at Clay and Gemma's door, as if he hadn't just seen Happy grab his keys, open the door, and pull Aisha through it behind him in what seemed like a single motion. _I can't believe she just did that._

Gemma stalked out of the room, returning a moment later with a large silver tray frull of miniature pastries from the Italian bakery. "Here," she said, dropping the tray loudly in the center of the table, with a clang. The cigarette balanced on her lower lip was already lit, and she opened and closed her hands with a "there you go" flourish. "Everyone ready for dessert?"

V thought for a moment that things couldn't get any more surreal, then watched as Clay leaned over the center of the table, staring at the jumpled mess of wax paper cups and broken tart crust. "Oh, what the hell, babe," he said. "You didn't get any of those pistachio things?"

-0-

Aisha had the flame under the teakettle barely minutes after they'd pulled into the T-M lot. "You want any?" she asked Happy.

"No." He pulled a beer out of the fridge, and sat down on the couch, and watched while she fixed her cup of tea and then curled up in what was probably the furthest spot away from him that she could find, and still be in the same room. She'd pulled her shoes off and her hair down, but was still wearing Gemma's clothes. Something about the way she just sat there, blowing the steam from her cup and staring sadly at any traces of Tig in the room, began getting to Happy. He couldn't put his finger on it exactly... if you'd asked him ten minutes before, he'd have said they were friends.

Was it this thing with acting like she was constantly afraid of what he might do? Yeah, in a large part. This wasn't something he was used to from women. Part of him wanted to push her up against the wall and explain a few things, like the fact that he wasn't Tig, and there wasn't a lot that attracted him about the idea of pushing up on some kid who was scared of him. He could fucking do better, for a start. Also, that she might want to realize it was in her best interests not to piss him off.

He lit a cigarette, not bothering to offer her one. "What the fuck was that?"

She didn't look surprised. "Nothing. It was weak and stupid. I didn't belong there at this stupid dinner with Gemma pretending." She took another sip. "He hates me."

Happy rubbed his forehead in annoyance. "That's the conversation you want to have?" he asked her. "Fuck. Call Gemma. Call Tara, call Lyla, hell, Bobby'll probably be good for it. I'm sorry you didn't get to get this out of your system in high school, that's rough. But honestly, Aisha, I'm not in the fucking mood."

She set her cup down with a click. "What conversation did _you _want to have?"

They stared at each other for a few seconds, then went back to the beer and the tea. When he'd finished, he stood up and grabbed his cigarettes. "I'm heading out. I can leave you here?"

She nodded.

"Fine. I'll be here in the morning."

"Why?" she asked him, without looking up.

He stopped on his way to the door. "What do you mean, why? I have things to do tonight."

She shook her head. "No, I mean _why. _You don't have to tell _me_ what's going on with all of this, Hap, but you should probably figure it out for yourself."

Who the fuck was she to tell him that? He sighed. "We're asking why, now? All right." He walked back over to where she sat and folded his arms, looking down at her. "Let's start with what the hell was going through your mind when you pulled that little stunt tonight."

"I told you. I wanted to go home."

"Bullshit, kid. Gemma would've taken you home and you know it. You wanted _me_ to take you home. If we're gonna be honest, you wanted him to _stop_ me."

She looked up at him.

He shook his head, spoke slowly and distinctly. "He didn't." He didn't like doing things this way, but he wasn't going to let this drag out. He needed this shit with Aisha to be out on the table. "You have your answer. Don't _ever _try that shit again. You don't have it in you, and you don't want to deal with what'll happen, you keep that shit up."

She looked nervous, but defiant. "It's not what you think," she said. "I'm sorry. It's just that I trust you."

He closed his eyes. "Don't start trusting me. You ever pull anything like this again, you won't have to worry about him wanting you back. You will have an entirely different set of problems. Are we clear?"

He could see that she'd done her share of standing up to anyone for that night, probably a few times over, and wasn't going to argue with him. Hell, she wasn't much of an arguer at the best of times. She nodded again, looked down.

He hadn't wanted to do things this way, he thought as he turned his back on her and walked out, but he had things to think about and loose ends to tie up if there was any possibility he might be staying in town. She was one of them, but there were others. He was ready to have everything out in the open, defined. He was going to have to lay it out for Tig... but there was someone else he wanted to talk to first.

-0-

He knew he'd probably gone too far. Hell, he'd ruined Gemma's party, and he loved her parties. For Christ's sake, though, he'd just been trying to talk to his _wife. _Come to think of it, he was going to have a few choice words with her about the way she'd left.

Things had gone off the rails pretty badly, but he didn't feel like looking back and figuring out when it had happened. What the hell was he supposed to do, anyway? Sit there and make small talk, and act like the kid was his old lady? Fucking ridiculous. He might be married her, but that was _it. _So she'd done two years in jail for him. Good for her, at least they fed her. That hadn't been her decision to make, though.

Tig could see Jax and Tara having a hissing argument. The question of who was going to take V back to her car had come up, and somewhat automatically, Jax had offered. "Take the baby home without me," he'd told Tara, who had immediately responded with "I'm sorry, are you _kidding _me, Jax?"

V had started laughing, then, as if the whole evening's ridiculousness had suddenly hit her. The more she laughed, though, the angrier it seemed to make Tara, who was now alternating her Death Ray Look between Tig and Jax.

Well, Tig thought, he should probably start trying to make it up to them all, right? He'd been in a fairly shitty mood tonight, that was all. He walked over to Jax and Tara, and held up his hand. "I can take V home," he said pleasantly.

"What? The hell you can," Jax snapped, barely looking at him. "I don't even know what the fuck you're _on._"

"Hey, relax," he said. The sanctimonious little prick pissed him off more by the day, and in a way this shit with Aisha had been a welcome distraction from how much it had been weighing on him lately that this kid would be the president. "I'll keep her safe." He turned to Tara and smiled at her, slipping back into his old mode of dealing with her without thinking about it. "Hey, doc, listen." He leaned onto the wall. "Thta thing you said, is that true? That it's not... conclusive, or whatever?"

Tara turned to look at him. "What?"

"No," he said, "I just thought that was interesting. She was living in my place for like four years, maybe a year and a half when we were, you know..."

Tara looked incredulous. "I'm sorry... _what?_"

"Fucking." He smiled at her, to mellow her out a bit. Christ, she was an edgy bitch. "So when we didn't have any issues, I figured it meant she just couldn't-"

Tara shook her head. "I'm not going to _talk about this_ with you," she said. She looked over to Jax. "I'm not in this conversation. Just not."

Jax was, as usual, staring at him like some kind of lobotomized penguin. Tig held up his hands. "Fine! I was just trying to talk to you about stuff you might be interested in, you bein' a doctor and all." He turned to V. "You ready to go? Better make it quick. You can't seem to keep a ride tonight."

V had actually been considering taking the ride with Tig, partly to get the fuck out of there, and partly because she couldn't help enjoy the look on Jax's face, but that last bit caught her up short. She opened her mouth, but wasn't sure she wanted to call him out on it right yet. Gemma seemed to have been the only one really picking up on what was going on with Happy, and she really wasn't in the mood to have Tig needle her about getting ditched and then have it start another round of "You can't fuck anyone in the club but meeeeeeeeee, those are the ruuuuuules" with Jax. In a way, his disrespect to her with how he'd handled this Tara thing was liberating—and that between that and everyone else's drama, nobody was going to give a shit about what she did, as long as she didn't add to it. Starting a yelling fight with Tig about whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean wasn't exactly going to dial the drama down.

V felt a hand on her wrist. "I'll take her home."

Juice had been pretty quiet since he'd had his realization at the table about his date, who was still sitting where she'd been on the other side of the table, looking uncomfortable but resolved. V gestured vaguely in her direction. "Didn't you bring somebody?"

Juice shrugged. "Doesn't matter." His tone reminded her of Tig's when they'd been out on the shooting range and she'd asked about Aisha.

Tig snickered a bit, but turned agreeably away. "Well, then, I can see about getting Ally home or wherever she's going." He smiled insinuatingly at the redhead who'd arrived with Jax, remembering the way she moved. She wasn't bad. He'd been all kinds of preoccupied that night, but maybe he could do with getting his head together.

The girl looked up, then quickly held up a pink cellphone, as if warding him off. "_Audrey," _she said, "is thinking she should probably just call a cab."

-0-

-0-

Jax cursed, as his eyes adjusted from the morning's brightness to the gloom of the clubhouse, and he found himself almost tripping over four or five things scattered around on the floor. Hearing a crunching sound, he reached down and realized he'd just stepped on a pink cellphone. Taking another step forward he almost tripped over one of Aisha's boots.

He was going to have to have a talk with Clay. This was a freaking MC, and the state of this place was just embarrassing. Bad enough that he'd had to sit up all night with Tara reassuring her that despite last night's evidence, his whole family had not in fact gone utterly damn insane. Now he tried to come to the clubhouse for a little bit of quiet before work, and it looked like a goddamned sorority.

He walked towards his room, pausing to notice various forms of property damage. _Both _Aisha's and Tig's had fist-sized dents, each comically reflecting the size of the assailant. Jax looked at the height of the indentation on Tig's door, and reflected that someone as little as Aisha must have been pretty pissed off. Meanwhile, her door had had a jagged hole punched through it, through which he could see her sleeping on top of the covers, fully clothed but wearing only a single shoe. What the hell?

He heard the shower shut off, and realized that he didn't feel like running into another psycho this morning. He'd just duck into his room and smoke a joint, then be on his way. Before he could, though, Tig opened the bathroom door, looking positively rejuvenated, wearing a towel. "Oh, hey, Jax," he said in a friendlier tone than Jax had heard from him in quite a while.

Jax jerked his head at Aisha's door. "You do that?"

Tig shrugged. "I needed to _talk _to her. There was too much door."

-0-

Juice held his hand over Audrey's mouth, waiting to hear Jax's footsteps recede. He had to choke back a yelp when she playfully bit him. "_Ow,_" he said. "Bitch."

Underneath him, on the floor by the side of his bed, she collapsed into giggles, and he had to put his hand back over her mouth. She moved against him, and with his hand still pressed over her mouth, he found himself kissing the side of her neck, then using his teeth.

Finally, when the voices receded, he uncovered her mouth. "Sorry 'bout that."

"Are you kidding?" she said. "Last thing I need is anyone knowing what we were doing here last night."

"_You_ don't need it?" He shook his head, then looked down at her. "You'd better shower. Tig'll be cleared out, and it's a good time to take off before Jax's mom gets here."

Audrey nodded. "Mind if I shower?"

He shook his head. "Just be quick. I don't need to deal with Mr. and Mrs. Psycho this morning. And _nobody_ needs to know what happened here last night."


End file.
